Putting Casino In City Deserves Serious Thought

February 16, 1992|By TOM CONDON; Courant Columnist

The Indian casino has got to be the ultimate affirmative action program.

In the early '60s, the whole Mashantucket Pequot operation was a trailer on Lantern Hill in Ledyard, occupied by a tough, proud woman named Elizabeth George, matriarch of the last family on the tiny reservation. The tribe was a heartbeat away from history.

But along came some federal laws, a good lawyer and fine leadership from George's grandson, Skip Hayward. Now the tribe may need the trailer to take money to the bank.

I was there Wednesday. The casino is medium-sized, by Las Vegas standards, understated, nicely done. It was packed. It's going to stay packed. It will lead inevitably and quickly to the next question: Should the state build and run a casino in Hartford?

A group that includes Sen. William A. DiBella is looking into it, as a possible adjunct to the proposed convention center.

They're talking about having a major casino operator come in and build the convention center and hotel, in return for permission to run the casino. That might even allow the state to take some or all of the $150 million it was going to spend on the convention center and use it to build a sports stadium.

It is an enticing idea.

If it were built and run properly, a single casino would bring jobs to Hartford and boost the economy.

Consider Altantic City, both as a good and bad example.

When casino gambling was proposed in 1976, its proponents promised 33,000 jobs by 1985. They delivered 41,000 in the dozen casinos, with another 20,000 outside the casinos, according to Dan Heneghan of the Atlantic City Press, one of the country's leading gaming writers.

The casinistas also promised $844 million in new construction by 1985. That figure was $3 billion in '85, and is now $5 billion. They promised $330 million a year in new wages, and delivered $797 million. They said an 8 percent casino tax would produce $30.3 million a year for senior citizens and people with disabilities. It produced $170 million a year by '85.

Now the downside. Casino advocates said the gaming would reduce street crime in Atlantic City. Instead crime increased, although

exact parallels are difficult to draw because there are so many more people in town than there were before the casinos opened.

There was also an implicit promise that casinos would help rebuild Atlantic City. That too hasn't happened. The place still looks dingy, and even has a familiar-sounding problem with empty lots. But several observers suggest that has been more the city's fault than the casinos'. Atlantic City is a tiny barrier island, smaller than New York's Central Park, with a rich and varied tradition of political corruption.

Towns on the mainland near Atlantic City have prospered in the casino age, with new housing, malls and restaurants.

One casino has closed. The three owned by The Donald have been, or are about to go, through Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The parent of another casino, Resorts International, has also been through Chapter 11.

Heneghan suggests this is because they were all built with junk bonds and badly overleveraged.

My sense is that one casino, properly financed and run, would work in Hartford. If we want it.

Although there've been massive cleanup efforts, many law enforcement people still think that if you peel away enough layers (and lawyers), organized crime still runs gaming. We'd have to find out.

Casino jobs are OK; dealers can make $25,000 and up with tips. That's better than fast food, but not as good as manufacturing. I'd much rather have manufacturing jobs, but we're losing them by the tens of thousands.

Gambling also carries an image problem. The insurance companies, I suspect, aren't going to like their gray-flannel, conservative town offering craps and roulette.

But casino gaming is coming. It's being talked about in all the states around us. Gov William Weld of Massachusetts, darling of the lets-get-fiscal conservatives, is even talking about sports betting.

Hartford is depressed and in need of a radical jolt. Unlike almost everyone else around here, DiBella is thinking big. If the casino could make the convention center work, and help put life into downtown, we should at least let him put his cards on the table